Hands-on with Splinter Cell: Conviction and Zombie Infection for the iPhone

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction is coming out on three platforms. Gamers may be familiar with the first two — Xbox 360 and PC. But they may be surprised to find out that Gameloft is doing its own adaptation of the stealth game on the iPhone. I had a chance to check it out recently and came away mixed.

The iPhone Splinter Cell will feature the same storyarc as the console version, and it will contain a lot of its features. The Mark and Execute move gameplay is there along with the Last Known Position. In addition, the game employs the new cover system. Although these additions sound good, they’re simplified for the hand-held. Gameloft kept the virtual buttons to a minimum thankfully, using two context-sensitive ones at the bottom-right corner of the screen. Moving around works in the same way as other Gameloft titles with a virtual joystick and finger swipes around the screen to change perspective.

As far as the visuals go, it’s acceptable given the limitation of the iPhone. Sam Fisher looks like Sam Fisher. The enemies are distinguishable throughout the 10 levels and five environments, which includes a section in the Middle East. Some notable graphics: The rain effects are nice and there’s a few nice touches in the environment such as the ability to hack computers and read e-mail. As in other Splinter Cell games, the lighting has an effect on stealth gameplay. To remain hidden, players have to shoot out lights. In addition, Last Known Position works somewhat well though I wish there were more avenues of escape so that Fisher can play cat and mouse with the enemies more naturally.

Seeing as how this game is a rehash of the console version, I’m not too keen on playing it, but I figure that those who may not have Xbox 360 or can’t pony up money for PC version may find this as a viable alternative.

I’m not going to lie. Zombie Infection is a blatant copy of Resident Evil 5. It’s action-based survivor-horror game where a cameraman named Anderson and a second-person named Shauna fight off a zombie outbreak in Africa.

The locales look familiar. The enemies could have been taken out of Kijuju. The one thing Zombie Infection has going for it is that you get to shoot zombie lions and zombie alligators. PETA will not be happy about this. But then again, no real animals were zombified in the making of this iPhone title, and the gameplay works decently.

Again, the controls work similarly to Gameloft’s other third-person shooters, except there are a few modifications here and there. The most obvious one is the ability to holster and unholster your gun. As in the Resident Evil games, unholstering your weapon slows you down a bit while you have to adjust the perspective to aim. There are some assists, but the whole system work all right given the limitations. Holstering lets players run around freely, which comes in handy especially, when you’re in the lion pet, trying to flee from zombies and lion.

The fact that Zombie Infection doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously lends itself some charm. Gameloft knows it’s making a Resident Evil 5 clone, but at least, it’s shaping up to be an entertaining one.